Absorbent articles such as sanitary napkins, pantiliners, and incontinence pads are devices that are typically worn in the crotch region of an undergarment. These devices are designed to absorb and retain liquid and other discharges from the human body and to prevent body and clothing soiling. Sanitary napkins are a type of absorbent article worn by women in a pair of panties that is normally positioned between the wearer's legs, adjacent to the perineal area of the body.
It has been found that it is desirable to maintain absorbent articles in close contact with the wearer's body. The maintenance of close contact of such products to the perineal area is referred to herein as body contact. The importance of body contact is known in the art for its role in allowing the absorbent article to absorb the body exudates at their source. Achieving good body contact limits the chance for the body exudates to flow off of or out of the absorbent article.
The sanitary napkin art contains examples of sanitary napkins having mechanisms to resist distortion of the napkin in use as well as to attempt to maintain contact with the wearer's body. For example, various types of absorbent products with resilient members are known and disclosed in the patent literature. They generally fall into one of three classes. The first class of absorbent articles with inserts are those which contain flat inserts that are primarily intended to resist distortion of the absorbent product such as the articles disclosed in UK Patent Application 2,168,612 entitled "Sanitary Towel with Resilient Insert" published in the name of Fennimore on Jun. 25, 1986 and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,195,634 entitled "Sanitary Napkin with Resilient Stiffening Means" issued to DiSalvo et al. on Apr. 1, 1980.
The second class of absorbent articles contain pre-shaped resilient structures or inserts such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,886,513 entitled "Absorbent Pad with Reinforcing Member to Resist Deformation" issued to Mason, Jr., et al. on Dec. 12, 1989. Another example is disclosed in PCT International Publication No. WO 91/03999 (assigned to Molnycke), published in the name of Lindquist on Apr. 4, 1991. These inserts generally do not allow for comfortable and continuous contact with the body in that they are typically limited to a shape that does not closely resemble the shape of a woman's anatomy.
These approaches suffer from the drawback that they do not generally provide for continuous adjustment to the shape of the wearer's anatomy and contact with the wearer's body. Previous designs intended to promote body contact are also not believed to be suitable when applied across the broad range of women's body sizes and dimensions.
The third class are sanitary napkins and other absorbent products which offer enhanced fit and comfort through a construction that promotes a continuous self-conforming anatomical cooperation of the sanitary napkin to the body. Absorbent articles in this class are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,171,302 and 5,197,959 issued to Buell on Dec. 15, 1992 and Mar. 30, 1993, respectively. This continuous self-conforming anatomical cooperation is achieved by a flexure resistant deformation element that causes the body facing surface of the sanitary napkin to stay in contact with the body. The lateral compressive forces of the wearer's thighs are used to cause a convex upward shaping of the sanitary napkin. In a preferred embodiment, the deformation element has a "W" shaped cross section with the center of the sanitary napkin being curved convexly upward relative to the wearer's body.
While the technology described in the Buell patents provides comfortable body contact, the search for improved and alternative absorbent articles has continued. In particular, it is desirable to provide good body contact such as that described above in an even more comfortable manner in sanitary napkins having a variety of shapes, sizes, and thickness, but especially in ultra thin absorbent articles (that is, those with calipers of less than about 3 mm).
Thus, a need exists for an absorbent article, such as a sanitary napkin, that is provided with an improved mechanism for maintaining the sanitary napkin in contact with the wearer's body while offering increased comfort.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide an absorbent article, such as a sanitary napkin, that is provided with an improved mechanism for maintaining the sanitary napkin in contact with the wearer's body. This improved mechanism is intended to increase the opportunity for body contact by elevating the center area of the absorbent article with a resilient component that allows the absorbent article to maintain maximum body contact through the various ranges of motion of the wearer while still providing maximum comfort to the wearer, especially in an ultra thin absorbent article.
These and other objects of the present invention will be more readily apparent when considered in reference to the following description and when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.